Challenge to nuclear fuel tax

Green and left-wing politicians in the Bundestag and state governments want to extend the nuclear fuel rod tax, Bernward Janzing reports in taz. The tax is payable by nuclear power station operators whenever they use new fuel elements in their reactors and adds 144 million euros to state coffers per year. But the tax will be phased out at the end of 2016 unless the government decides to extend it. While the environment ministry, led by a Social Democrat, favours the extension, the finance ministry under conservative minister Wolfgang Schäuble opposes it. In the end the tax could become part of a legislative package on how the payments for the nuclear clean-up are divided between utilities and the state, Janzing writes.

Read the article in German here.

Read a CLEW factsheet on securing utility payments for the nuclear clean-up.